An Architecture for Improving Hajj Management
The effective management of crowded events such as the Muslim Hajj in Saudi Arabia and the Hindu Kumbh in India continues to remain a challenge mainly due to uncontrollable buildup of crowds or mismanagement. Despite regular occurrence of catastrophes suc
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1 Department of MIS, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, Faculty of Business Adminstration, Tabuk University, Saudi Arabia [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract. The effective management of crowded events such as the Muslim Hajj in Saudi Arabia and the Hindu Kumbh in India continues to remain a challenge mainly due to uncontrollable buildup of crowds or mismanagement. Despite regular occurrence of catastrophes such as stampedes and fires, resulting in significant loss of lives, there are no international binding standards for controlling and managing large crowds. Indeed, the use of advanced technology, including tracking and monitoring tools, and sensor and biometric identification methods, can assist towards better crowd management but technology alone cannot be a solution to overcrowding. Because of the congestion, resulting from overcrowding, timely cleaning and sanitation becomes unmanageable, which causes spread of diseases. This article discusses some factors which are critically important and provide an architecture for better management of Hajj. Keywords: Management, Crowd, Hajj, Kumbh, Stampedes, RFID, Sensor Networks, Biometric, pilgrims, tawaf.
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Introduction
In the last decade alone, thousands of people have perished in stampedes, fires and other incidents resulting from overcrowding or mismanagement of large gatherings of people. Ironically most of the crowded events happen to be religious in nature. On 13th October 2013, more than one hundred people died due to overcrowding on a bridge in India [1]. On 10th February 2013, dozens of people were crushed to death in Kumbh [17]. On the eve of 2013, more than sixty people were killed and hundreds injured in Ivory Coast [2]. Excessive death toll (over eleven hundred) and injuries (over two and a half thousands) in a building collapse in Bangladesh on 24th April, 2013 was also partly due to overcrowding [18]. In Hajj alone, during the last twenty years, several stampedes and fires have resulted in thousands of deaths, the most recent [3] being in October 2012. To analyze and describe the problems of overcrowding, we have chosen the case of Hajj, which is an annual event involving a gathering of more than three million with very intense activities. The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Makkah in Saudi Arabia that takes place every year during 8th-12th Dhulhijja, a month in the Islamic (lunar) calendar. Every year millions of pilgrims from more than one hundred and fifty countries perform Hajj. Although K. Liu et al. (Eds.): ICISO 2014, IFIP AICT 426, pp. 187–196, 2014. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014
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M. Yamin and M.A. Albugami
the Hajj rituals span only four fixed days, but partly due to limited air and sea transportation, many of the pilgrims spend four to six weeks in and around Makkah (Mecca) and Madinah (Medina), the two holiest cities for Muslims. The Hajj is a unique, very complex, challenging and costly exercise to manage as it involves frequent mass movement of more than three million pilgrims. Some of
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